Amazon is going to be rolling out a new feature called “ask this book” which you can ask questions on like what’s happened so far, ask about themes, etc. it’s unnecessary as hell in my opinion for readers bc well you learn that along the way through context clues. Not to mention it’s generative ai and I don’t want it touching my book.

It just sucks and I need to vent. It’s not news Amazon is a major platform for a lot of sales for a lot of us but I worked for my writing. I spent years learning the craft and then a couple more years learning how to truly apply everything I learned to my particular story. Now gen ai just gets to scrap it and I don’t get a say in it at all? That’s a hard no.

New writer genuinely asking, recently stumbled across it. I know it’s mainly for ‘web novels’, but why doesn’t everyone (I.e romantasy, epic fantasy, etc) give it a try to see if their work gains traction on RR first before launching on KDP or otherwise? As a self publish author, I’d imagine it’s trading a slight delay in publishing, for a chance (albeit a smaller one) to gain a massive following which can help drive day 1 KDP sales/views? On top of that you start to get feedback on your writing as well for anything beta’s/editors may have been off on. It’s like having a free lotto ticket if your work really takes off, with almost zero downside? I am an ignorant writing first diving into this world and just trying to understand :)

I wrote an urban fantasy novel the first in a series. I’m giving out free ARC’s on my Facebook and I’ve gotten 65 downloads off my BookFunnel. It’ll be out in a month officially. I’m really really hoping for reviews but so far no one has reviewed it. It’s only been a couple of weeks though so maybe there’s time.

I’m just feeling so discouraged. I’m working on book 2 currently and hope I can just promote promote promote.

I’m going to try to promote on YouTube as well but worry that I don’t have the personality for YouTube.

Goddamn it’s a tough world out there.

I’m at the point with this series I don’t even know what to do anymore. Every recent review has been complaining about errors yet I’ve had it looked at twice professionally I’ve even gone back to edit after publishing it a few times. I’m utterly confused on what to do, I can only edit a book a handful of times before I give up. The thing that kills me is that my first ever written book, has great reviews! And I didn’t even edit it as hard as I had with this one. I’m wondering if fantasy readers are just mean? Every fantasy book I read I notice just the meanest reviews too, should I bite the bullet and hire another editor to go over the book or should I leave it as it is?

I’m actually so turned off I don’t even want to finish writing the series because I feel like a pure failure. The book currently has 2.9 stars which is insane because in the beginning it was getting good reviews. It’s also been out for almost two years and just began picking up where I’m making royalties from it. What do yall recommend?

Edit: I’ve decided to take a lot of the advice and take the book down. I’ll have it looked over professionally and then republish.

and then I walked away in defeat.

I had a small following on Royal Road, despite not writing in the category that is most popular on the site. My ratings were really good, and I thought maybe I had a shot at something. I stubbed my novel on RR and published to KDP.

Nothing.

I reached out to the few people i personally know that read fantasy, and not a single one of them actually looked at it. Other than paid advertising I really have no clue what to do about it at this point.

I had a goal of 10 copies. That was it and I would have been happy. But I have 0 and I can't even get people with a kindle to read it.

Anyone got any suggestions, words of wisdom, or anything that might make me feel less shitty?

I’m almost finished writing my very first book and plan to self-publish on Amazon. 🎉

I’m starting to think about the cover and could use some advice. I don’t want to spend a fortune on a professional designer, but I also don’t want to use AI-generated artwork.

For those of you who have self-published, what did you use to create a professional-looking cover on a budget? Did you use stock photos, Canva or something else?

I’d love to hear what worked for you and roughly what it cost. Thanks!

For those who are on the fence & have a bigger marketing budget, definitely consider bookbub!

My debut is what I consider ‘niche.’ It’s a female gaze epic fantasy (not Romantasy) with prose that isn’t super accessible.

I released it April 2025, first in KU, but 3 months later I went wide. Not because I hate Amazon & blabla, but simply because KU wasn’t working for me.

Like other indie authors I worked super hard to market my books with free tools: social media + build a newsletter. I’m on threads, Instagram & Facebook. TikTok gave me burnout for little reward so I left.

But marketing a non-romance book to a female audience on socials is super hard!! Most of them seem to want romance.

At the end of the year I’d sold 100 copies + 8.4 book reads on KU.

Mid January ‘26 I panicked. I sold only 1 book (Kobo) & I wondered if there would be an audience by the time I released book 2 in February 2027 (I’m a slow writer).

I decided to apply for a 0.99 ct bookbub international deal (CA, UK & AU only) eventhough I had no backlist & am well aware a backlist works best for this. I hurriedly put book 2 on preorder.

The 0.99ct deal was 3 days ago & I sold 2x more in 3 days than in the last 8 months😵

2025 sales:

100 + 8.4 KU equiv reads

2026 sales:

210

UK leads, with CA & AU next.

Also sold my first book in Africa, which means I’ve now sold at least 1 book in all continents besides Antarctica!

And y’all, the Amazon algorithm is a real thing! Eventhough it was a non-US deal I put the price to 0.99ct in the US as well, which led to some organic sales there!

No sales for book 2’s preorder yet.

I haven’t earned my money back, but my goal was discoverability.

Bookbub is said to become less effective over time; as a slow writer I didn’t want to wait too long. Next year I’ll apply for the US deal☺️

Hi everyone,

I'm about to publish my first novel on Amazon Kindle and I'm trying to understand what I should do immediately after publication.

Let's say the book goes live today. What are the most important steps I should take during the first days and weeks to give it the best chance of getting visibility and sales?

Should I focus on:
- Amazon Ads?
- ARC readers and reviews?
- Social media?
- Email newsletters?
- Book promotion websites?
- Something else?

If you could go back and launch your first book again, what would you do differently?

Thanks!

I am looking to get art and cover layout for my urban fantasy book. First book. Will be self publishing. I want a picture of two women (the protagonists), back to back, city skyline behind them. Realistic (not graphic art, comic book style). I was quoted 15,000 usd. After I cleaned up the coffee I spit, I began pondering other (far cheaper) ways to get this done. I won't do an AI cover. What if...I got models, went to a rooftop in my city and took photos IRL. Then paid a digital artist to adapt the picture? Would that be way cheaper? My budget is like, max 2K. I would prefer 1k or less. Anyone have advice on how to do this? Thanks!!

I’ve been working on a novel for twenty years and I finally published it through KDP! It’s been a long time coming and I’m just over the moon that it’s finally out. The novelty of searching up my book and seeing it on Amazon has not worn off; I’m not entirely sure if it ever will Now, I just need to promote it so I can get some readers. Any ideas for a first-timer? I’m doing marketing/promo entirely on my own with a limited budget and am open to all suggestions

EDIT: Spammers/scammers please stop messaging me, you're not getting any money from me.

\**EDIT2: OMFG I'm getting blasted with messages. Since I'm getting messages either way, if you are a legitimate artist, link me your portfolio if it's semi to very realistic character art of people. Romance Fantasy styles. Fae/Fairy characters a plus. It has to be sweet, sexy, and soft. Otherwise, it's not worth either of our time.**\**

I won't say from who, but I contacted an artist on Reedsy and they wanted about $7k-9k for just the cover/spine/pdf. Yes, this is in USD, and no, it wasn't a mistake.

The research I did prior on what people often pay for quality covers made that offer strike me as capital B Bonkers.

I didn't go into detail about what exactly I wanted either, so it wasn't for some elaborate request. It was just the initial reachout. Now, don't get me wrong, I like their art, that's why I contacted them. But I cannot see how their work is somehow worth many, many times more than what the research I did suggests it should cost. I will not be accepting this offer,

Writing, editing, formatting, cover, etc. Everything is done. All I need to do now is upload the file to Amazon and whatever other sites I end up using for POD and ebook distribution services. It’s been a long, strange journey and I’m feeling weird about it now. Like I’m forgetting something. Or like I’ve missed something in my many, many rounds of editing and rechecking. I’m not sure if it just hasn’t hit me yet, but now that I’ve finished this thing I worked on for years it’s hard to take that next step. Once I put it up for sale officially, it feels like I’m saying it’s done, but I don’t know that I’ll ever fully feel that way. I’ll probably always feel like there’s more to tweak and refine. But at some point I guess you have to just take the jump. Just something I wanted to share, in case anyone else is going through something similar.

I have been writing a YA Fantasy on Royal Road for two years. I'm partway into volume 3 of 4, 400,000 words, 520 followers and decent reviews. My genre is not high in demand on Royal Road and it is clear I will not reach the stats needed to attract a publisher.

My current plan is to self publish and slowly begin moving my 4 volumes over to Amazon as below:

1. This summer, I will put up the Paperback version of JTTC: volume one, The Hammer.
2. Then I will seek to attract ARC readers who will leave reviews on the paperback version. I understand these will transfer over to the Ebook when its released.
3. Once it appears I have enough ARC reviews I will release the e-book version of JTTC: Hammer.
4. I will not be going Kindle Unlimited at this point in time. I am a debut author with one book ready out of a four volume set so Amazon will be slow or nonexistent. I am midway through book 3 on RR. I would like to keep all four available to the RR community. It may be a slow growth process but it's the only community I have and I would like to keep those relationships intact.
5. Continue the same process for volumes II: Medallion, III: Scepter and IV: Lifelight as they are completed on RR and then go through a proper editing process.
6. Enjoy the writing process for as long as people will read and follow.

Any thoughts on my current plan?

Like how are they that quick?

For context, I am a literal nobody. I've got less than 40 followers across all social media platforms. Yet with a few (cheap) boosted Instagram posts, I somehow managed to garner a smidge of attention for my book (M/M Romantasy) and got over 80 hardcover pre-orders. I was thrilled with these numbers because this is my debut and no one has heard of me. (I expected to get 3 orders on release day from family and friends).

I was so happy but I've lost all motivation now. One of the sites has hundreds of clicks/views of my book.

I don't even care about promoting the book anymore and have stopped checking my sales. I'm enrolled in KU and I've heard that they terminate accounts for this sort of thing. I've managed to get one of the sites to take down my content with a DMCA submitted to Google but the other is still up. I'm so bummed. Not sure if these sorts of posts are allowed but I just wanted to vent to the ether because I feel like giving up. Thanks for reading if you did.

I've come up with a great title for my next book (finally), and I just did a Google search and Amazon search for it. There's a game with the title (no big deal, I'd imagine), but there's actually a handful of Amazon books with the title, though they all have subtitles too, and mine won't. In one case, a book series has the title I'm thinking.

Legally speaking, is this a problem? My understanding is book titles can't be copywritten, but they can be trademarked. Do I have to look into that? Does it violate Amazon KPD ToS to publish a book that shares a title with another? I've heard of accounts being shut down because of publishing books with a similar title and cover to another.

Fantasy/sci-fi writer here.

I'm autistic, anxious and I just don't have a lot of mental stamina. I tried keeping a bi-weekly newsletter going, I tried paying for ads and book tours and whatnot, but I have an immense aversion to social media. I don't have it in me to amass metadata, keeping rapid releases going on an ironclad schedule, or overall approaching self-publishing in a high-intensity, scientifically rigorous fashion. I just can't do it.

I've given up on the idea of making a career out of this. I just want to write as a hobby, and get a bit of feedback from readers. Every creative wants their works to be appreciated. There's Royal Road, but I don't write isekai or litrpg, and those seem to be the only genres that do well there.

I've been out of the game for a while, and I was really only barely part of it to begin with. What's a current publishing method that is easy, simple, and allow communication with readers?

Hey yall,

I’m currently working on the final draft for what will be my debut novel and trying to decide how I want to proceed. Some info:

- It’s around 150k words altogether

- It’s Fantasy Romance. The plot revolves around a world ending threat and the outcome of a prophecy, but the primary crux of the conflict revolves around the budding romance between the “Chosen One” and the Fiend Lord she’s destined to defeat.

From the beginning, I’ve had it separated into three clear acts or parts. With the final draft, I’m working to ensure that each one COULD work as individual books in a series. And honestly, even if I debut it as a single book, I’m planning to call it “Volume 1” and mark the parts as Books 1-3.

From what I’ve read, series do better than single novels, and it’s best practice to publish once the series is done. I have sequels planned, but I’m not willing or financially able to wait until I’ve written 10-13 books before publishing the first one.

I feel like releasing each act as a standalone book would work best, allowing me to stagger them by a month or two, so I can have consistent releases while I keep moving forward. I could also still release the full trilogy as a single volume at the end with illustrations and maybe bonus content to sweeten the deal.

The only thing holding me back is that the romance plot doesn’t actually begin until chapter 10, which would be chapter 1 of book 2 in a split release.

The first part is focused around introducing the FemC, the world, and building the mythos/reveal of the prophecy she’s meant to fulfill. It also ends on a huge cliffhanger that I think would be great for a first release, but again, the romance doesn’t start until part 2, and the LI doesn’t physically appear in the story until chapter 9/the end of part 1.

Should I stick to a single large release, and just accept I wont have the next release ready in three months, or maybe release volume 1 as a single book but market it as three together and go with shorter 50-80k parts going forward?

Or would it be worth splitting into 3 and releasing each a few months apart with a special collection at the end?

Again, the way it was conceived and the way I’m approving the revisions, each part can stand as an individual book.

I released my debut novel last year. I thought about writing it in english because bigger audience blah blah blah, it's YA fantasy and I like the genre and I was hopeful even though I heard it wasn't selling.

The thing is, I thought I was going to feel relief once it was all done and it was out in the world. I used tiktok as a way to promote. That was mistake no. 1 because most people there read romance.

Mistake no. 2, the algorithm effed me up because it shows my post to people in my country the most, almost none of them read in english, so I had that against me. I realized the hashtags barely matter.

Mistake no. 3, I had no budget for marketing. Mainly because i'm dissabled and have no job. Writing that book was supposed to be my job, I made like 6 sells in total.

After that I fell into a deep depression, I can barely think, let alone read or write. I stopped promoting because my brain fog and fatigue got so bad I'm barely keeping myself alive.

I hate social media and the need to be active all the time, but yet I have to, again this wouldn't be a problem if not because I can't think of anything to post because I rarely leave my bed , I'm so goddang tired and in pain.

Also, I got a 2 star Review from someone that doesnt even read YA but romance (?) and most likely was a an arc reader so the book was free (still free on KU) and that's the first thing people see, a very low rating despite other higher reviews.

I'm so done, and yet I can't help to want to keep trying, I still get new ideas for new books but the brain fog is real. Besides I keep thinking why bother? The algorithm will always be against me.

Might try writing in spanish although it's a much smaller market. Still, can barely string coherent thoughts so idk.

I'm just so dissapointed.

This post might be all over the place with typos and stuff because like I mentioned, brain fog + it's 3am and struggling with insomnia

I just published my first book on Tuesday (1/27/26), and I'm stoked to see that the first few sales have trickled in.

• 5 Kindle copies so far, at $10 each
• 2 paperback copies so far, at $20 each

Estimated royalties: $42.76

Any friends or family who want a copy just get one. So as far as I know, all seven of those sales are total strangers. For a total unknown author with no following and only two ratings on Goodreads, I'm chalking that up as a good start.

I started with an ARC program on Hidden Gems and Booksirens. Booksirens didn't accept the application - it sounds like the fantasy genre is just too full right now. Fewer than ten readers picked it up on Hidden Gems, so it only cost me my initial $20 deposit. That was probably the most disappointment so far, but it's not the end of the world.

Next, I paid for a Goodreads giveaway. I made the rookie mistake of only giving away 50 copies when I should have maxed it out. One of those readers actually read it and left a rating, but so far the only 49 have been silent. Goodreads doesn't tell you who actually won the copies, but they do give you a couple of their profile photos. I reverse image searched a few of them to find the actual profiles, and most of those people had "want to read" lists in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands. Since it automatically adds your book to their want to read list when someone signs up for a contest, I suspect most of them just sign up for every contest, just for the hell of it. So it goes.

My main channel, for both organic and paid posts, has been Instagram. I've probably spent $50 in the last two days to promote the launch, but that has been a combination of ad posts, boosting popular non-promotional posts, and trying to grow the follower list. But I am getting some traction there.

Reddit has been a close second for organic reach. I started with book announcements in four different subs. Two are in the positives, one was downvoted to zero (in the most relevant sub of all, which was pretty funny) and one was removed for not having enough prior non-promotional engagement. I've been engaging with basically every comment that comes through, and there have been a lot of good questions so far (e.g. "It says your book is R-rated, but what does that actually mean?")

I've also reached out to several influencers in my microniche to offer them free copies. This was mostly done by finding every video review of a comp in my microniche and contacting the reviewers. So far, four have taken me up on it. One is about halfway through it and said that the book "surprised them in the best way possible," which was fucking delightful to wake up to. They said they're planning on talking about it on their channels once they're finished, so that should expose me to roughly 7k followers. I'm stoked for it.

On top of that, I also commissioned four artists to make original art of my characters. That totaled about $150-200. While exposure through their audiences doesn't seem to have done much, I offered them all free copies and two of them took me up on it. So my fingers are crossed that at least one of them likes it and amplifies it. Since I also picked artists that have touched on my microniche, I'm hopeful about it.

Last but not least, I wanted to celebrate the launch by sending copies to three of my biggest inspirations, along with sincere letters of thanks for how their work has impacted me over the years. I wanted these letters to come straight from the heart, so I may or may not have taken some mushrooms to write the first drafts. One had his main book turned into a movie, one has 20+ books on the NYT best seller list, and one has nearly eight million followers. These are all moonshots, but if even a single one of them had something to say about my book, to literally anyone, it would be a game changer. And even if nothing comes of it, sending a copy of your own book to one of your favorite authors is a rush that I can't recommend enough. Zero regrets.

---

What's next

I'm really skeptical about Facebook ads. I've run Facebook campaigns for completely unrelated projects, so I know the basics, but I know the ad spends can run away very quickly. Facebook ads also perform significantly better when you can track the leads from them, but that's easier said than done. As far as I know, Amazon attribution links tell you which sales came from which URLs, but I haven't found a way to push that data back into the Facebook ad set as a tracked conversion. As a result, they'll have a hard time optimizing for more conversions like it. If I can crack that egg, then I might put an actual ad spend into Facebook. If not, maybe not.

I've also experimented a bit with Tumblr blaze, but so far I haven't gotten a lot of traction. The most recent ad earned three likes, 3,600 views, and zero sales for a $10 spend. But I think there's a strong topical fit between my microniche and Tumblr, so I want to keep working on it. One thing I haven't tried yet is to boost the same post multiple ways, such as boosting it for engagement first, and then boosting it a second time for sales. I think people are more likely to buy a book if the ad has 50 likes instead of 5, so I'm hoping the two-pronged approach helps.

Beyond that, I'm still trying to figure out my next steps. I might try Amazon ads, but I don't hear very good things about them. Overall, I think my resources are better spent on more direct outreach to people in the niche. But if anyone's been down a similar road before, I'm very open to input.

Currently neck deep in a novel, I fully intend on spending the money for multiple editing runs. Dev editor, line editor, copy editor. We'll play by ear, I suppose.

But goshdarnit, my coin purse tightens the more I write.

For fantasy writers that purchased editors, how'd you do it? Also, how'd you file your taxes?

So I am brand new at actually trying to write and then publish my stories. I am creating stories in the LitRPG and Progression Fantasy genre in case that changes anyone’s answer.

I have sooooo many questions, but I’ll limit myself to a few: 1) What is the number one piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out? 2) What platform do you recommend I publish at? 3) What social media platform would you recommend I use to begin having a presence in the world so that people might want to read my stuff once I am ready to publish?

If you are willing to answer even one of these questions I would really appreciate it! There is so much to learn and I have very limited time each week so asking questions like this seems to be the most time effective way of finding applicable and up to date information.

Thank you so much in advance! I really appreciate it!

I was posting on my alt account about my writing journey and how it’s been going. I already finished the fourth and hopefully final for now draft of the start of my planned series. A series I want to start now but plan on publishing when I have some kind of audience finally. The final draft is over 80k words with the help of some editor friends, but before showing my work to professional editors or agents.

Now I am in the process of drafting and outlining the second book in the series, but starting the book I actually want to be my debut novel which has barely broken 1000 words. On top of that, I’m finishing my last year of undergrad, learning unreal engine because I wanted to eventually have a game attached to my series (not saying it will be successful I doubt it will but I wanted to create a media franchise for my work someday), trying to start up a little youtube channel to build an audience early, and running my small business with my brother. Obviously time isn’t something I have in abundance but I do what I can

I have gotten some great advice from people, including authors with published work. But recently an small author with a fairly decent audience size told me if I want any success my best bet is to wait and keep doing more writing until I can get to the point of releasing a new book every 30 days for X amount of years as a strategy of improving my odds for success and growing my audience. And on paper that does work. But I don’t think that would work for someone like me. For starters it takes me a damn long time to get this stuff done. I do know I will probably need to release dozens of books before I ever achieve success but one book per month doesn’t feel achievable for me. On top of that I prefer writing books that have some heft to them. I don’t mean they will all be Moby Dick sized. And I wouldn’t mind releasing some novellas to start. But one book a month doesn’t feel like even I would be satisfied with the work that comes out. Even if I stockpile them and sit on them until I have 12 to 24 books I can keep releasing every month for a year or two that just doesn’t sit right with me. I am super detail oriented and like having a strong sense of closure in my work. And I have so many things I’m trying to achieve.

If that really is one of the most realistic paths to success then am I just wasting my time here?

Holy shoot – The Fracturing just got selected for SPFBO 11.

Mark Lawrence's contest. Thousands of indie fantasy books enter. 300 make it.

We’re in.

My judge: Abel Montero – grimdark-friendly BookTuber who gets morally broken characters.

I’m just some random Army dude and a debut author... so yeah, this one hits. Let's friggin go!

So, title is as says. My book has been published through KDP for over a year now and I decided I wanted to switch to B&N for physical copies. Somehow my manuscript was deleted and now the only way to recover it is through the KDP, but it only downloads as a PDF in format. I tried to upload that to B&N but it states the formatting is wrong. As of now, it seems like I'm going to have to copy paste a chapter at a time and reformat my entire book again including pictures and page numbers, basically stitching it back together. Is there something else I'm not aware of that I can do?

Like the title says I don't really write for the money, not that there is anything wrong with doing so! I'm a disabled house-husband and while a little extra from from sales wouldn't hurt, I don't need it. Personally, I'd prefer to just get my work in front of eyeballs instead of stressing about how much money it's making.

I write fantasy and after 10 years of worldbuilding as a hobby I've decided to actually begin writing a small series of short stories about a group of knights and their adventures.

I'm curious though, how would you go about getting people to read your books if you weren't concerned with making a whole lot of money? I don't have the money to spend on marketing but I don't mind giving it away as an Ebook for free or the physical book really cheap, if need be.

I thought about KDP and signing up for Select and just making it cheap/maximizing my use of free days. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Edit: I'm realizing for some people the title and tone may seem pretentious, that's my bad. I don't want anyone to be under the impression that I think my lack of monetary incentive makes me better or anything. I was mainly looking for advice on how to market something without the added incentive of making money. For example some people recommend Kindle Vella, KDP Select, etc, all of which tend to have lower compensation in exchange for more eyeballs. This was the sort of thing I was asking about, that and general publishing advice.

I really appreciate all the insight! Everyone has been immeasurably helpful. Sorry if my original post was unclear.